Digital media devices such as network-connected television sets and digital media adapters (DMAs) are evolving to provide consumers with access to an increasing large amount of digital media. Digital media includes content (e.g., television episodes, movies, music, images, etc.) available from remote content providers (e.g., YouTube, ABC.com, NBC.com, Netflix, etc.) as well as content stored on a user's local network (e.g., desktop computer, laptop computer, digital video recorder, digital media device, portable music player, etc.). With access to potentially thousands of pieces of media content coming from a variety of sources, network-connected televisions and digital media adapters attempt to provide search tools to allow the user to quickly find specific content to consume.
Many existing digital media devices display the available media content to the user in unhelpful ways, such as alphabetically ordered thumbnail images. Many digital media devices also do little to ensure that the highest quality media file is played to the user when identical pieces of content are located on multiple remote sources (e.g., two different Internet services). These problems present considerable usability problems for the user.